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Our future, our universe, and other weighty topics

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Some
people try to make a very simple argument to get you to believe
something: believe in some claim, because there is a consensus of
experts saying the claim is true. But you should reject such arguments.
The mere fact that a consensus of experts supports some claim does
not show the likelihood that such a claim is true.

One
very general reason why a consensus of experts means very little is
that experts may have a vested interest in supporting some particular
idea, and may therefore not be impartial, objective judges as to
whether such an idea is true. The first definition my computer gives
me for “vested interest” is “a
personal stake or involvement in an undertaking or state of affairs,
especially one with an expectation of financial gain.” There
are innumerable reasons why someone may have a vested interest in
supporting some idea, some obvious and some not.

Here
are some exampleswhen the experts had
a vested interest in supporting some particular claim. A
cardiologist may recommend a CT scan when he works for a practice
that owns some expensive CT scanning machine, and profits in
proportion to how often that machine is used. Such an expert opinion
is tainted and not trustworthy. In early 2003 we had many military
and ex-military figures claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of
mass destruction. Such persons had a vested interest in going along
with the rush to war (in which no such weapons were discovered). If
such experts had stated the opposite opinion, saying that the US
president was wrong in suggesting that Iraq had such weapons, such
experts would have been ostracized within their organizations and
social groups, facing various types of penalties, given the “war
fever” climate that existed at that time.

Similarly,
someone seeking a position as a university professor has a vested
interest in going along with whatever doctrines are currently
dominant in whatever field he is studying. For example, if you are
doing graduate study in neurology or evolutionary biology, you will
be much more more likely to be appointed a professor in such fields
if you “tow the party line” rather than taking a maverick
position in opposition to most of your colleagues. In the same vein,
if you are an expert in Catholic theology, you have a vested interest
in supporting traditional doctrines rather than opposing them. There
aren't many jobs for heretical professors of Catholic theology.

Another
reason why a consensus of experts means little is that the pool of
experts is not randomly created, and is subject to extremely strong
sociological effects that may lead it to poor judgments. In this
respect it is interesting to contrast the operations of a jury and
the operations of a group of academic experts.

A
jury is produced from a random selection of people, which helps to
protect it from prejudices held by only a minority of people. If we
pick 12 random New Yorkers to judge a murder suspect, we are unlikely
to get mostly people with some bias such as “people of that race
are born killers.” But there is no such randomness in the formation
of the pool of people who end up becoming experts in some topic. It
may be that 90% of the people who choose to study neurology are
people who previously tended to have thought biases now found in the
community of neurologists; and 90% of the people who choose to study
evolutionary biology are people who previously tended to have thought
biases now found in the community of evolutionary biologists; and 90%
of the people who choose to study Biblical theology are people who
previously tended to have thought biases now found in the community
of Biblical theologians. The result may be some group that ends up
being as biased as the group we might have if we selected juries with
“Help Wanted” ads like the one below.

Also,
juries are exposed to both sides of a case. The prosecution makes
its case, and each of its witnesses is cross-examined by the defense
attorney. Then the defense makes its case. Both sides make a closing
argument. But no such even-handed approach is taken when we are
training people to become experts in some particular field. For example,
if you study neurology, evolutionary biology, or some type of theology,
you are likely to be exposed almost exclusively to those teaching the
predominant assumptions of some particular field, with very little
exposure to contrasting viewpoints. Once you become an expert in
such a field, you are likely to be a kind of “creature of the
herd,” a collectivist “organization man” who has been
indoctrinated in whatever assumptions have become the sociological
norms in some particular subculture. Given such a situation, we should not expect a consensus of opinion within some group of experts to be a very reliable indicator of truth.

CNN
once had a fascinating show on how people become members of a biker
gang. The gang didn't just quickly accept new members requesting membership.
It required that people first serve for years as menial helpers,
basically doing any favor that one of the gang members wanted. It is
easy to understand the rationale of such a policy. Given such a high cost of admission
(in labor and time), it is far more likely that a gang member will
conform to the beliefs and behavior of the group, rather than risking
expulsion or group condemnation by defying its norms.

A
similar situation occurs in regard to becoming a member of many types
of elite expert priesthoods. To become, say, a neurologist, you
might have to spend $80,000 on graduate school, plus years of study.
Having spent that money and all that time, will our new neurologist
challenge the accepted assumptions of the group, or will he fall in
line, run with the herd, and conform to the norms within the little
subculture he has worked so hard (and spent so much) to get into? He
will almost certainly do the second thing. This is another reason
why a consensus of experts within a field is not something we should
be too impressed by. There are often extremely strong sociological
factors that may cause herd effects within a group, so a consensus
of experts may be no more impressive than the fact that most of a buffalo
herd is running in the same direction.

Let's
imagine a hypothetical example. Let's suppose there is something
called the central doctrine of quonkology, which is advanced by some
experts called quonkologists. It might be that 95% of the educated
public that has read something about this doctrine consider it to be
false. If we were to select the next generation of
quonkogists randomly from the public, it would probably be that this
central doctrine of quonkology would die. But instead, the next
generation of quonkologists will be that small sliver of the
population which had a previous tendency to support the central
doctrine of quonkology before they signed up to study quonkology,
possibly because they shared the intellectual biases and worldview of
quonkologists. So can we assume from the favorable consensus of
quonkology experts that the central doctrine of quonkology is true?
Certainly not.

Whether
they be secular or religious, collegiate or non-collegiate, the
schools that train experts are often bias magnets. Each type of
expert training school attracts people with some particular set of
intellectual and ideological biases. The people emerging from such
schools may have far more of a particular intellectual bias than the
average public. This may lead to very high levels of some
intellectual bias within each particular pool of experts, which may
help to make its collective judgment unreliable. Once a person signs
up for the long process of training to be some type of expert, he may
find that the training (and the resulting insular community he
becomes part of) act as a bias amplification mechanism. We should
hardly be surprised that such “bias-amplified” experts may have a
consensus of opinion that is way off the mark.

If
a consensus of experts is not a good basis for believing something,
what is? Good solid evidence. When you have good solid evidence for
something, there's no need to appeal to the fact that there's a
consensus of experts. For example, we don't hear people saying to
believe in electromagnetism because a consensus of physics experts
believes in it. There's no need for that, since it's much more
convincing to explain why neither your body nor your smartphone would
work if electromagnetism didn't exist. When we hear people appealing
to a consensus of experts as the reason you should believe some idea,
it's often the case that the evidence for the idea is weak.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

In
a recent TED talk entitled “Have We Reached the End of Physics?”
the particle physicist Harry Cliff talks about two astonishingly
fine-tuned numbers that are fundamental to the observed structure of
our universe. He repeatedly calls these “dangerous numbers.” This
is a very strange description, because as the transcript of the talk
makes clear, the numbers have just the right values needed for
creatures like us to exist. So why use the word “dangerous”
to describe them? Given the facts Cliff discusses, it might be more
appropriate to use the term “providential” to describe these
numbers.

The
first number Cliff discusses is the value of the Higgs field, which
Cliff describes as a “cosmic energy field.” At 4:05 in the talk,
Cliff says this about the Higgs field.

But there is
something deeply mysterious about the Higgs field. Relativity and
quantum mechanics tell us that it has two natural settings, a bit
like a light switch. It should either be off, so that it has a zero
value everywhere in space, or it should be on so it has an absolutely
enormous value. In both of these scenarios, atoms could not exist,
and therefore all the other interesting stuff that we see around us
in the universe would not exist. In reality, the Higgs field is just
slightly on, not zero but 10,000 trillion times weaker than its fully
on value, a bit like a light switch that's got stuck just before the
off position. And this value is crucial. If it were a tiny bit
different, then there would be no physical structure in the universe.

This
is an extreme case of fine-tuning. Physicists were so bothered by
this case of fine-tuning that they spent innumerable hours (plus
countless tax dollars) working on a very ornate theory called
supersymmetry, designed mainly to explain away this particular case
of fine-tuning. But the theory is really just one of those “rob
Peter to pay Paul” affairs, as it requires the existence of a whole
set of undiscovered particles, the existence of which would be just
as big a case of fine-tuning as the fine-tuning that the theory tries
to explain away. So far, as Cliff notes, the giant particle
accelerator known as the Large Hadron Collider has failed to confirm
the predictions of supersymmetry, leaving it in a state that one
commentator has described as a deathbed state.

The
second of Cliff's two “dangerous numbers” is the degree of dark
energy in the universe. Dark energy is believed to be an energy
within empty space that is causing the universe to accelerate. Cliff
describes the following disagreement between theory and observations
(which is actually the biggest such disagreement ever):

Now, if you use
good old quantum mechanics to work out how strong dark energy should
be, you get an absolutely astonishing result. You find that dark
energy should be 10 to the power of 120 times stronger than the value
we observe from astronomy. That's one with 120 zeroes after it. This
is a number so mind-bogglingly huge that it's impossible to get your
head around. We often use the word "astronomical" when
we're talking about big numbers. Well, even that one won't do here.
This number is bigger than any number in astronomy. It's a thousand
trillion trillion trillion times bigger than the number of atoms in
the entire universe.

You
can get a better grip on this idea if you understand that quantum
mechanics predicts that ordinary empty space should be teeming with
mass-energy, so much so that each cubic meter of empty space should
be denser than steel. In fact, the quantum mechanics prediction is
that each thimble-sized unit of space should have more mass-energy
than if the entire Earth were packed into it.

So
why do we live in a universe so different from that type of universe?
Physicists basically have no clue.

Ever since the invention of the atomic bomb we have enthroned our
theoretical physicists as some kind of towering geniuses, but in this respect it
seems that they are really like someone who predicts this as the
score of the next Super Bowl:

Carolina
Panthers: 345,564,456,786,123,523,236,234,845

Denver
Broncos: 24

Describing
the multiverse theory, Cliff offers this wobbly explanation (perhaps
just summarizing the thoughts of others):

What if all of
these 10 to the 500 different possible universes actually exist out
there somewhere in some grand multiverse? Suddenly we can understand
the weirdly fine-tuned values of these two dangerous numbers. In most
of the multiverse, dark energy is so strong that the universe gets
torn apart, or the Higgs field is so weak that no atoms can form. We
live in one of the places in the multiverse where the two numbers are
just right. We live in a Goldilocks universe.

This
is basically an “anthropic principle” explanation, the idea that
we can explain some lucky number in our universe simply on the
grounds that if it didn't have such a number, we wouldn't exist. But
unless some willful causal agent is introduced within such an
explanation, such an explanation is untenable, because you can't
naturally explain something merely by referring to something else
that came eons later. Causes come before effects, not after them.
If event X occurred millions of years after effect Y, we cannot
explain effect Y merely by referring to event X. The universe's
level of dark energy and the numerical value of the Higgs field are
effects that existed billions of years before life appeared, and we
can't explain such effects naturally merely by referring
to something that came eons later (the appearance of life).

I
may add that the multiverse does nothing to fix the bad reasoning of
trying to explain an effect by referring to something that came eons
later. Nor would the existence of a multiverse make it more likely
that our particular universe would have the right numbers by lucky
coincidences, since the probability of success on any one random
trial is not increased by increasing the number of random trials.

Moreover, while
Cliff uses the statement “suddenly we can understand the weirdly
fine-tuned values of these two dangerous numbers,” his
previous statements contradict that. For based on what he said
earlier, a dark energy level of the type we have (very, very low)
should not just be incredibly improbable but actually impossible.
For quantum mechanics predicts (according to Cliff) that dark energy
should be billions of trillions of quadrillions of quintillions of
times greater than it is. So apparently according to quantum
mechanics, the chance of a universe such as ours is not just very,
very low, but actually zero.

Multiverses
actually are not of any value in explaining the incredibly
improbable, and they certainly are of no value in explaining a
reality that seems to have a natural probability of zero.

Friday, January 22, 2016

Some
of our modern physicists and cosmologists are infatuated with the
idea of the multiverse, that there may be many other universes beyond
our own. There is no sound scientific basis for such an infatuation.
For one thing, the multiverse is typically imagined as a group of
universes that are completely isolated from each other, without
agents from one of these universes entering into or influencing
another universe. Given such an arrangement, there is no possibility
of someone in one universe being able to verify the existence of some
other universe or to make observations of it or to verify that some
effect in his universe was produced by some other universe or some
agent in that other universe.

Another
reason why the concept of a multiverse is not scientifically solid is
that it has no explanatory value. If the other universes in a
multiverse are isolated from our own, the idea of a multiverse is
worthless for explaining any of the phenomena in our universe. We
also cannot explain the fine-tuning of our universe by imagining the
existence of many other universes. This is mainly because of the
simple fact that the probability of success on any one random trial
is not increased by increasing the number of trials (for example, you
don't increase your chance of winning the lottery with any particular
lottery ticket if you buy lots of tickets). So a multiverse would
not make it more likely that our particular universe would have been
so fine-tuned by chance. The chance of our universe having suitable
characteristics by pure chance does not increase by even 1 percent if
there are an infinite number of universes. See here for a fuller
explanation of why the multiverse idea is not suitable for explaining
cosmic fine-tuning.

The
idea of a multiverse (as typically imagined) is therefore
metaphysical and useless. But is there some leaner and more
parsimonious concept we might formulate involving some other universe
– perhaps some concept that might be of some explanatory value? It
seems there is. Let us imagine what I may call the paraverse.

The
term paraverse is formed from the end of the word “universe” and
from the prefix “para,” which means “beside” or “to the
side of.” We can define a paraverse as some hypothetical realm of
existence that is in some sense connected to our universe in a way that
allows information and causes to flow between our universe and this
other realm of existence.

The
two main differences between the multiverse concept and the paraverse
concept are as follows:

The
multiverse concept postulates many other universes, while the
paraverse concept postulates only a single other realm of existence.

The
multiverse idea typically postulates universes that are completely
isolated from each other, without communication or interaction
between any two of the universes; but conversely the paraverse
concept says there may indeed be interaction or communication
between our universe and some other realm of existence, with perhaps
causes and effects sometimes flowing between the two.

The
visual below illustrates the difference between the two ideas. The
arrows represent interaction or communication.

In
imagining a paraverse we should be as flexible and open-minded as
possible. A paraverse might be a very physical place such as we know.
Or it might be some very different ethereal existence very different
from our existence. Beings living in a paraverse might be biological
beings, or they might be beings of energy or purely spiritual beings.

There
are various possibilities regarding interaction between a paraverse
and our universe. Such interaction could flow purely from the
paraverse to our universe, without anyone in our universe being able
to influence or visit anyone in the paraverse. Or there could be
two-way interaction between our universe and the paraverse.
Conceivably a mind in our universe could somehow be able to
visit or even migrate to the paraverse.

Given
such possibilities, you might ask: why even use such a term as
“paraverse,” when we might use older terms such as Heaven or the
Other Side? One reason might be to be more general and open-minded in
your consideration, and to avoid previously established religious
associations. The term “Heaven” has all kinds of associations
with Christian theology, while the term “the Other Side” has
various associations with spiritualist thinking. Without excluding
either, someone might prefer to use the word “paraverse” to be
more general, without locking into some particular set of
assumptions. The term “paraverse” does not specifically imply
some belief in life-after-death, although the concept may be quite
compatible with such a belief (as life-after-death might possibly
occur in some type of paraverse being considered).

The
fact that we do not observe such a paraverse with our eyes or our
telescopes is no basis for excluding the possibility of such a
paraverse. Our eyes can see only a small fraction of the
electromagnetic spectrum, and we can't see much of the substance in
our universe. Scientists tell us most of the universe is made of the
dark energy or dark matter we can't see. There could be many types of
substance or mass-energy, each of which is visible only to beings
made of that type of mass-energy. For example, if we are made of the
seventh type of mass-energy, we might be able to see only the
seventh type of mass-energy, and no other type. Standing right next
to you, unobserved, might be beings made out of the other six types
of mass-energy, which might be able to pass through you like neutrino
particles are constantly passing through our bodies, unnoticed.

Can
we consider this paraverse concept as a scientific hypothesis?
Absolutely. Arguments against such a claim do not stand up to
scrutiny. One rather ridiculous argument goes along these lines: we
must reject the idea of some other world or unseen powers that
influence our own world, because once we accept such an idea we would
have to throw away our science textbooks and start over. This
type of statement is just absurd. I think that 98% of the text in our
current science textbooks could be preserved unchanged even if we
were to find that some external influence outside our world was
influencing our world. Topics such as geology, chemistry, anatomy,
physiology, zoology, and many others would need no revision, nor
would there be much change in topics such as physics or astronomy.

Another
weak argument against the paraverse possibility goes along these
lines: in order for scientists to do science, they must make the
assumption that the causes of physical phenomena are solely in our
own universe. This argument is invalid, and is really just what
we may call an argument from inconvenience. The argument refers to a
situation of maximum convenience for the scientist (one in which all
causes come only from within our universe), and we are kind of nudged
to think that because some other situation would be inconvenient for
the scientist, it would make science impossible. But that it is not
persuasive. A pharmacist could make a similar argument, arguing
fallaciously: in order for pharmaceutical scientists to do
science, they must make the assumption that bodily conditions are
determined purely by the pills patients take. But such an
argument would not be valid. The fact that it is inconvenient for a
scientist to have to consider a very wide spectrum of causes for
things does nothing to exclude the possibility that there may
actually be such a very wide spectrum of causes for things, including
some causes from some realm of existence outside of our own. The
truth or falsity of a hypothesis should not be judged by whether such
a hypothesis is inconvenient for a scientist or anyone else.

Could
the hypothesis of a paraverse be of any explanatory value? Indeed, it
might be. There are a great number of anomalous observations and
experiences that we might help to explain through a concept of a
paraverse: certain types of UFO experiences, near-death experiences,
mystical experiences, photographs of anomalous visual phenomena such
as orbs, and perhaps also certain types of mediumistic phenomena. There is
significant evidence that people in our universe have encounters with
phenomena that are very hard or impossible to explain. Swept under
the rug by our reality-filtering skeptics, such evidence may point to
the existence of some unseen paraverse that may causally influence
our own universe.

Monday, January 18, 2016

According
to the computationalism theory of the human mind, the mind is like a
computer, and one day we will be able to develop computers that
produce outputs just like human consciousness. Such a theory is
assumed by most proponents of the Singularity, the idea that there
will before long be an “intelligence explosion” which results in
machines with intelligence far beyond our own. Such proponents write
books with titles such as The Age of Spiritual Machines. Such
theorists usually don't tell us that they are advancing the
computationalism theory of the human mind. They usually just
pronounce the dubious ideas of such a theory as if such ideas were
self-evident.

But
the computationalism theory of the human mind is not valid. To
explain why, let us look into what happens when computers compute.
The following equation covers most of the types of computation that
occur.

By
digital inputs or digital outputs I mean anything at all that can be
represented digitally, by a sequence of binary numbers. Here are some
of the things that we know can be represented digitally, and which
modern computers do use as digital inputs or digital outputs:

Any
number

Any
set of characters or words

Images

Videos

Databases

To the computer, that
pretty gal is just a series of 1's and 0's

Any
text can be digitally represented by means of things such as the
ASCII system that allows you to represent particular characters as
particular numbers. While we don't normally think of an image as
digital, it can be represented digitally as a series of pixels or
picture elements. For example, a photograph might consist of 1
million pixels, which each can be represented by a number
representing a particular shade of color. So the image can be
digitally represented by a million such numbers. A video can also be
representing digitally, since the video can be represented as a
series of images, each of which can be digitally represented.

But
there are two things that we can never hope to produce as digital
outputs. The first is real conceptual understanding, and the second
is experience. By understanding I don't mean “how-to” type
understanding, but the high-level conscious understanding of some
abstract truth or concept. By experience I mean an actual human
experience, such as the life-flow you experience during an hour of
your life.

We
can imagine no possible way to produce a digital output that would
equal a real conceptual understanding of something. Nor can we
imagine any possible way to produce a digital output that would equal
something like a human experience.

Imagine
a conversation like this 200 years from now between a programming
supervisor and a programmer who has been doing his job for over a
century (thanks to the marvel of life-extension pills).

Boss:
Well, I've got an interesting new assignment for you. I want you to
compute an interesting new output.

Programmer:
This should be a breeze. I've
already done functions that compute 12,000 different text outputs,
15,000 different numerical outputs, 25,000 different image outputs,
and 4000 different video outputs.

Boss:This time I want the computer to
produce waterfalls and Swiss cheese. Not just pictures, but the real
things.

Programmer:Are you crazy?

There might be a
similar conversation if the boss asked the programmer to produce
understanding or experience as the outputs. Just as waterfalls and
Swiss cheese are not digital outputs, real conceptual understanding
and experience (a slice of life-flow) are not digital outputs. You
can make outputs that might mimic some understanding someone might
have, but you cannot produce real conceptual understanding as a
digital output. You can make outputs that might mimic some sight
someone might see while having an experience, but you cannot produce
actual experience (a slice of life-flow) as a digital output.

But, you may ask,
doesn't that smart computer Watson already understand something –
the game of chess? No, it doesn't. Watson merely can produce a
digital output corresponding to a good move to make as the next move
in a chess game. Watson has zero conceptual understanding of the game
of chess itself, and has zero understanding of the abstract concept
of a game. The only way you can understand the abstract concept of a
game (or the abstract concept of leisure) is if you have been a human
being (or something like a human), and played a game yourself.

A
digital output must always boil down to a series of 1's and 0's. Can
we imagine a series of 1's and 0's that would equal a real
understanding of an abstract concept such as health, matter, life or
world peace? No, we cannot.

Because
conceptual understanding is not a digital output, we should not think
that predictions such as the following recent prediction
are correct:

The
third thing you can expect before the year 2100 is the development of
generalized artificial intelligence (GAI). In other words, machines
that don't just play games like chess or Jeopardy, but can do the
thinking required for any white-collar job, including all the ones at
the top.

Such a prediction is
based on the idea that future computers will be able to produce
conceptual understanding as an output. They won't, because real
understanding of abstract concepts is not a possible digital output,
and digital computers will only be able to produce digital outputs.

Postscript: Digital computers translate inputs into digital content, and translate outputs into content that may not seem digital. For example, a compiler translates English-like computer code into digital inputs a computer can understand, while a purely digital output may be translated into something that doesn't look digital. But at the lowest level inside the computer, it's all digital.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

One
of the central problems of explanation is the problem of explaining the human mind and human consciousness. One facet of this problem is explaining
the human mind from an evolutionary standpoint. There are aspects of
the human mind that seem to serve no purpose from a standpoint
of increasing human survival value or reproduction (as discussed here). So how can can we
explain such aspects merely through natural selection? Another facet
of the problem is what is called the hard problem of consciousness, the riddle of how mere matter
can give rise to Mind, something that seems to be totally different.
To many, the idea of mere matter giving rise to Mind has seemed as
unlikely as the idea that you might get blood to pour out of a stone
if you squeezed or jiggled around the stone in the right way.

Our
materialist thinkers stumble about when posed with this dilemma.
Sometimes what happens is that they retreat to a denialist standpoint
that is completely absurd. A materialist thinker may claim that
consciousness itself is just an illusion. This is a nonsensical
nadir that is a symptom of a failing worldview.

What
is the one thing we can be absolutely certain of – not 99.9999%
certain, but 100% certain? Not any of the findings of science, but
the mere fact of our own consciousness. You see, there's just the
tiniest sliver of a chance that your assumptions about what exists
might be totally overthrown by future experiences. Let's use our
imagination to think of how that could happen.

One
day you could be walking to work, surrounded by many pedestrians, and
suddenly – poof, you might instantly find yourself lying on some
bed, with your brain connected to wires. Some strange alien being in
front of you might then announce something like this:

I'm
sorry, but the illusion you have been used to is now over. We've run
out of funding for the “human experience simulation.” I know
you've become convinced that there are things such as the earth, the
moon, the sun, and the United States of America. But no such things
have ever actually existed. They are merely elements that we added to
the “human experience simulation” that we were sending into your
mind.

Something
like this is very unlikely to happen, but not quite impossible. But
there is one fact that you should be 100% certain about (not merely
99.9999% certain), and that is that you have some kind of consciousness,
some kind of conscious experience. Everything around us might be an
illusion, but our consciousness itself is an utterly certain reality.

But
there are some people who have no limits on what absurdities they can
fly to in defense of their misguided worldviews. Some of these people
have actually claimed that consciousness does not exist, that it is
just an illusion. We can call this consciousness denialism. It is a
form of denialism that is more intellectually bankrupt than any type
of denial that is commonly criticized. Consciousness denial is a
position far more ludicrous than the position of heliocentrism denial
(the denial of the position that the sun is the center of the solar
system). We just might have some weird sci-fi experience one day that
leads us to think that the sun isn't really the center of the solar
system (something like the weird possibility discussed above), but we
could not possibly have any experience that could justify the belief that
consciousness does not exist.

The
latest apostle of the risible absurdity of consciousness denial seems
to be one Michael Graziano, an associate professor of psychology and
neuroscience at Princeton University. In a piece entitled
“Consciousness Is Not Mysterious,” Graziano makes these absurd
claims:

Graziano
cites no scientific findings to support this claim, nor does he cite
any facts or scientific papers to support his claim. This is hardly
surprising. We cannot imagine any possible observations or
experiments that would ever justify the claim that consciousness does
not exist, any more than we can imagine some observation that would
prove that 2 plus 2 equals 5.

Denial of the obvious

Graziano
claims most erroneously that consciousness is "no longer a
fundamental mystery.” When he says that the mind is a
“trillion-stranded sculpture made out of information,” he implies
that consciousness is just information. He's wrong. A library of
books has lots of information, but not the slightest consciousness.
Consciousness includes experience, or a mental reality of
life-flow; and experience or life-flow is something vastly more than
just information. If consciousness was just information, then you would
be as conscious when you are sleeping as you are when you are awake
(with the same information stored in your memory); but that's
obviously not the case.

Although
Graziano is a scientist, when writing this piece he was not wearing
his scientist hat. He was wearing his philosopher hat. I've always
felt that philosophy is the birthright of every human, so I will not
begrudge his attempt to play philosopher. I will merely point out
that by claiming “consciousness doesn't happen,” he has reached
the second most absurd philosophical conclusion anyone could make.
There is only one way you could do worse, and that is to write in
defense of the position that absolutely nothing has ever existed: no
matter, no energy, no minds, and no thoughts.

But
perhaps a position like that will be the next step for our reductionists. Just
as they have tried to remove the problem of consciousness by claiming
that consciousness doesn't exist, perhaps they will next try to
remove the problem of the sudden origin of the universe by claiming
that the universe doesn't really exist. That would be only a
little more ridiculous than the absurdity of consciousness denial.

Postscript: Mr. Graziano has a more reasonable-seeming discussion of the topic of consciousness at this link.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

One
of the most astounding characteristics of the large-scale universe is
the very large number of beautiful spiral galaxies. Most of the
larger galaxies in the local universe are spiral galaxies. Why is that fact
surprising?

It's
surprising because of what is called the winding problem. Galaxies
rotate, and a galaxy like ours takes about 200 million years to
rotate. But consider a rotating spiral galaxy. The stars closer to
the center of the galaxy will take a much shorter time to rotate
around the center of the galaxy than the stars closer to the edge of
the galaxy (just as planets close to the sun have much shorter years
than planets far away from the sun). That's because the circles of
rotation of stars closer to the galaxy's center have a much smaller radius. Therefore, based purely on
rotation speeds, we should expect that the spiral arms of a spiral
galaxy should “wind up” after only 2 or 3 rotations, and that spiral arms should last less than a billion years.

But
the age of the universe is about 13 billion years, and spiral
galaxies are believed to be about that age, or almost as old. This
means the average spiral galaxy has undergone more than 50 rotations.
Based on simple rotation considerations, it seems that we should not
at all be seeing even a tenth of the spiral galaxies that we see in
the sky.

But
don't worry, scientists have an explanation to cover this: what is
called the density wave theory. But it's not a particularly credible
explanation. It doesn't seem to stand up very well to observations, and it
isn't well-confirmed by computer simulations.

Explanations
of the density wave theory often use an analogy involving traffic
patterns. We are told that just as we can explain concentrations of
cars near freeway exits, we can explain the concentration of stars in
the spiral arms of spiral galaxies.

But
anyone familiar with the distance between stars should be suspicious
with this analogy. Cars on a freeway exit are relatively close to
another. But stars are not relatively close to each other. The
distance to the nearest star is 6 million times the diameter of our
sun. So how can any type of freeway exit car concentration analogy
be appropriate for stars so far apart?

The
“density wave” imagined by the density wave theory is merely an
area where stars are about 10% more common. But given the immense
relative distance between stars, how can anything that far apart
act like a wave?

A
recent scientific paper studied the spiral galaxy M81. The paper
concluded, “Our data therefore provide no convincing evidence for a
stationary density wave with a single pattern speed in M81, and
instead favor the scenario of kinematic spiral patterns that are
likely driven by tidal interactions with the companion galaxies M82
and NGC 3077.” The “tidal interactions” theory is a completely
different one from the density wave theory, and one with its own
plausibility problems (tidal interactions are random gravity tugs
that we should not expect to produce all that often the orderliness of
spiral arms).

The spiral galaxy M81 (Credit: NASA)

In
a paper that calls itself “A case against spiral density wave theory,” some
scientists stated the following:

An
offset is expected between these subsamples as a function of radius
if the pattern speed of the spiral arm were constant - as predicted
by classic density wave theory. No significant offsets are found....The
standard scenario of density wave theory with a
constant pattern speed results in an offset with respect to age for
the distribution
of distances to the spiral arms as one moves from the central
regions... No
significant differences are found in the distribution of these
sources, giving further negative evidence for density wave spirals.

If
scientists actually understand what forms spiral galaxies, they
should be able to create computer simulations that show spiral
galaxies very often forming from random collections of matter, with the spiral
galaxies persisting in sufficient numbers. But the simulations don't
do that. A recent major galaxy evolution simulation was the Eagle project, described
in this paper written by more than a dozen scientists. But the 38-page paper
doesn't mention density waves, doesn't mention spiral arms, and
doesn't even use the word “spiral.”

The
paper has a visual showing some simulated galaxies that resulted
from the simulation, although we have no idea whether the authors cherry-picked
those galaxies that most looked like spirals out of some large batch of simulated galaxies. But even the shown simulated galaxies
don't actually have clear spiral arms (except for one). We see instead disks seeming
to consist of random blobs of matter surrounding a dense core. From
the fact that the paper makes no mention of “spiral” or “spiral
arms,” we can conclude that no notable success was achieved in
frequently creating simulated galaxies with spiral arms like the spiral arms in
spiral galaxies (if such a success had been achieved, I can't see how
the authors would not have mentioned it).

When
asked about the spiral arms in spiral galaxies, scientists will often
speak as if they understand their origin and persistence, without
confessing their lack of understanding on this matter. But
occasionally you will get some refreshing candor on this topic. The abstract of this 2012 paper
candidly says, “After almost fifty years the origin of
spiral arms in disk galaxies remains one of the major unsolved
problems in astrophysics.”

Here we have another case of scientists trying to explain a mountainous effect (that a large fraction of the universe's galaxies are magnificent spirals) by using a little molehill of an explanation (that it's just "traffic jams" that cause this). I suspect something vastly deeper is going on.

Postscript: The recent discovery of "super spirals" ten times bigger than our galaxy makes it all the much harder to explain spiral galaxies, as discussed here.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

In the year 2050
scientists developed an Immortality Injection that was guaranteed to
keep the body young for centuries. Only the rich could afford the
injection, which cost 30 million dollars. But after a few years a
path was opened that would allow an average person a small chance of
getting the Immortality Injection. That path was a reality TV show.

The show was the ultimate
implementation of a “winner take all” concept. The first episode
would start out with 50 contestants, and in each show some of the
contestants would be killed off – literally. The contestants faced
such dangers in each episode that it was guaranteed that some of them
would die in each episode of the series.

Ever since the 2030's it
had become common for deaths to occur in reality TV shows. Some
people still complained about it, but the public had become very
apathetic about seeing people die in reality TV shows. The public
had become like the ancient Romans in the Coliseum: they expected to
see some deaths as part of their favorite entertainment.

The idea of the series was
simple: start out with 50 contestants, and expose them to incredible
dangers. In each episode, some would die. By the last episode there
would be only two contestants left; and after their final
competition, there would only be one contestant surviving. That
person would get the ultimate prize: the Immortality Injection.

Two friends named Ted and
Alex debated whether to apply to be a contestant.

“I'm feeling lucky, so
I'm signing up for the show,” said Ted. “How 'bout you sign up,
too?”

“Are you crazy?” said
Alex. “The odds are 50 to 1 against you.”

“But think of the
payoff,” said Ted. “You live forever! What's a matter, don't you
have the guts to risk it all?”

“I'm just as brave as
you,” said Alex. “Okay, I'll sign up, too.”

The first episode was a
treasure hunt. Each contestant had to run around a big field filled
with various obstacles, getting each of the items on a treasure list.
But there was one little problem. The field was filled with land
mines. If you stepped on one, you would be blown up into 100 pieces.
Eight of the contestants stepped on the mines, and died. But Alex and
Ted made it through with 40 other contestants.

In the second episode each
of the contestants was given a car, and asked to drive on one of the
most dangerous roads in the world, a road running along the narrow
rim of some mountains in the Andes mountain range. Nine of the
contestants plunged to their deaths, when their cars went over the
side of the road, rolling down for hundreds of meters before finally
exploding. But Alex and Ted made it through, with 31 other
contestants.

The third episode was the
lightning run. Each contestant had to run back and forth down a
specially constructed runway. Above the runway was an electrical
system that would randomly generate blasts of electricity that could
kill you with 12,000 volts. Ten of the contestants died. But Alex and
Ted made it through, with 21 other contestants.

The fourth episode was
called: “Swim With the Sharks.” Each contestant had to swim
though a huge swimming pool, and retrieve a series of items that were
either floating about or lying on the bottom of the pool. The problem
was that there were also two hungry sharks swimming about. Seven of
the contestants died, after being bit by the sharks. But Alex and Ted
made it through, with 14 other contestants. Both Alex and Ted
figured out that the secret for winning was to swim down to the
pool's bottom, and pick up a sword that could be used to defend
yourself from a shark attack.

The fifth episode was
filmed at Niagra Falls in New York State. Contestants were put in
boats and told to row across a body of water near the falls. If they
didn't row fast enough, they would plunge down the falls to their
deaths. Eight contestants failed to row fast enough, and fell down the
waterfall to their deaths. But Alex and Ted and 6 other contestants
survived.

The sixth episode was
centered around racing. Each contestant was put in a specially
constructed car which had its accelerator remotely controlled. The
cars were accelerated by remote radio signals to speeds of 120 miles
per hour. Each contestant had to drive through a forest, without
crashing into a tree. Six of the contestants died in car crashes. The
only remaining contestants were Alex and Ted.

There was one more episode
to determine the grand prize winner. The two friends discussed their
strange situation.

“Let's hope it's some
test of skill that we can both can pass,” said Alex. “Then maybe
they'll give the Immortality Injection to both of us.”

“Let's keep our fingers
crossed,” said Ted.

The final episode took
place in a kind of arena with a circular pit at its center. Alex and
Ted were put in the circular pit, each armed with a six-shooter. A
hungry lion was let loose in the pit. Surrounding the circular pit
was an audience of thousands of spectators.

Alex tried to shoot the
lion, but it ran around too fast, and evaded the bullets. Alex was
soon out of bullets. The lion stood before him, growling as if it was
about to charge.

“Kill it with your gun!”
said Alex. He knew Ted still had all six of his bullets.

Ted thought about the
prize. He knew he had signed a contract saying that the immortality
prize would be given to only one person. If he saved Alex, he would
lose his chance for immortality.

After hesitating for a
moment, Ted put his gun back in his holster. He couldn't bear to see
what happened next, so he turned his eyes away. After ten more
seconds of Alex's unanswered pleas, the lion charged, and killed
Alex.

The Master of Ceremonies declared
that Ted had won the grand prize of immortality. But at that moment,
Ted felt a great surge of guilt and grief. What had he done? How
could he have been so selfish? He thought back on the great times he
had as a kid with his childhood friend Alex. They had been through a
lifetime of adventures and misadventures together. Now Alex was dead,
eaten by a lion. Ted could have prevented it, but he didn't.

Filled with remorse, Ted
felt like using his six-shooter to shoot himself. But then someone
came and took his gun away. A doctor arrived on the scene, carrying a
syringe. It was the Immortality Injection.

After various fanfares and
flourishes, the Master of Ceremonies announced what would happen
next.

“And now the grand prize
winner and sole survivor will be given the Immortality Injection,
which will give him the blessing of Eternal Life,” said the Master
of Ceremonies.

There was a good deal of
exaggeration in such a statement, and the “immortality” would
probably not last longer than a few centuries. But this kind of hype
was almost standard procedure in this type of entertainment
spectacle.

When Ted saw the syringe
containing the Immortality Injection, he suddenly got an idea for how
he could partially atone for his terrible sin. He grabbed the syringe
from the doctor, and walked out of the circular pit at the center of
the arena. He went walking into the audience. The Master of
Ceremonies and a person with a hand-held camera followed him.

Ted thought to himself:
Who can I pick? Not one of these rich spectators who spent $1000
to buy a ticket to watch someone being eaten by a lion. None of them
deserve it.

Then Ted spotted someone
at the back of the arena. It was a young cleaning woman who was
emptying one of the garbage cans. Ted walked up to the beautiful
young woman, a complete stranger.

“Hey there,” Ted said.
“You wanna live forever?” he asked.

The young woman smiled and
nodded. Ted took the Immortality Injection, and injected the entire
syringe into the woman's arm.

The audience was stunned
by this surprising turn of events. The Master of Ceremonies was at
first speechless. But finally he stuck a microphone in front of the
young cleaning woman, and asked her: “How does it feel to be the
first poor person to be given a lifetime of at least 1000 years?”

Ted walked out of the
arena, into the cold of the dark littered streets. All his efforts
had got him nowhere. But at least at the end he had got back a little
piece of his soul.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

As
part of their efforts to keep us believing that we live in a bland
universe (what we might call a three-flavor universe), and not a
funky universe rich in paranormal phenomena (what we may call a
64-flavor universe), various people engage in what we
might call anomaly denial. Such figures tend to repeat the same
lame excuses and catchphrases again and again, to try to dismiss
strange observations that don't fit in with their tidy sanitized
worldviews. Let's look at some of these catchphrases, and see why
they are mainly just vacuous rhetorical devices.

“Things
like that don't happen.”

This is such a sweeping dogmatic statement that it can be
immediately dismissed as an overreaching absurdity. Not only does the
statement claim that some particular type of anomalous phenomena
doesn't occur, it basically asserts that no paranormal phenomena ever
occurs. One way to rebut the claim is to remind someone that the
universe began in the most anomalous, unusual way imaginable
(according to scientists, the universe suddenly burst into being from
an infinitely dense point). Then say: “Things this odd apparently
have been happening from the very beginning of time.” Another good
rejoinder to the claim “things like that don't happen” is merely
to ask: how do you know?

“There
must be a rational explanation.”

This is basically a rhetorical device that attempts to
characterize any paranormal explanation as irrational, and then asks
us to look for mundane explanations that are deemed rational. A good
way to counter this bit of rhetoric would be to say something like,
“Yes, everything in the universe has a rational explanation, even
the most mysterious things that are utterly beyond human
explanation.”

“If
this existed, scientists would understand it or acknowledge it.”

One reason that this claim is not very persuasive is
that the universe is full of mysteries that scientists don't
understand, such as the Big Bang, dark energy, dark matter, and
quantum entanglement. Another reason that this claim is not very
persuasive is that investigating the paranormal seems to be almost a
cultural taboo for the great majority of scientists. Since most
scientists have pretty much declared a “hands off” policy in
regard to the paranormal, there is no reason why we should expect
them to understand anything relating to the paranormal, even if it
existed. Similarly, if I refuse to look into the topic of quantum
chromodynamics, you should not expect me to understand it.

“You
don't believe in that kind of nonsense, do you?”

This
is a kind of loaded question similar to a question such as, “Have
you stopped beating your wife?” The person who asks the question
hopes that the person will answer, “No,” and thereby exclude the
paranormal possibility. But if the person answers, “Yes,” he is
then put in the position of asserting his own belief in nonsense.

A good
reply this type of question is to say something like: it's illogical to
deny the possibility of something when evidence for such a thing
appears.

“I
can't believe that – it's impossible.”

In
general, science does not warrant claims that particular anomalous
phenomena are impossible.Almost
the only claims that are impossible would be those that assert the
nonexistence of something science has proven. So claims such as
“carbon doesn't exist” or “gravity doesn't exist” are
impossible, according to science. But science in no way excludes most
of the anomalous phenomena people claim to have observed.

“I
have to reject that report – it's unscientific.”

Some
may thinkthat it is
real scientific to immediately reject some report or claimed
observation that does not match the expectations of scientists. But
that usually isn't scientific, but instead the opposite of
scientific. A good scientific procedure is to accept any
observation or possible observation relating to a hypothesis, and to
store that observation in a set of observations that will be
considered whenever that hypothesis is to be considered. You could
describe such a policy with this slogan: bank it, don't bunk it. In
other words, rather than immediately dismissing an anomalous
observation with some lame excuse such as “things like that don't
happen,” you should “bank” an observation by putting it
somewhere where it might be “withdrawn” for further scrutiny when
the topic is under further analysis.

“There's
no evidence for that.”

This
is perhaps the favorite catchphrase of skeptics, and is ruthlessly
deployed even in many cases where there is a huge amount of evidence
for something. The best way to counter this (when appropriate) is to
assert the opposite, something like: “To the contrary, there is a
great deal of evidence for this.”

“You
must have just hallucinated.”

Variations:
“He must have just hallucinated”
or “She must have just hallucinated.”

This catchphrase is useful for trying to wipe out
evidence for various anomalous phenomena such as apparitions,
near-death experiences or UFO's. You can rebut it by pointing out
that hallucinations can reasonably be attributed only to people with
chronic mental illnesses or people under the influence of alcohol or
drugs, and cannot be reasonably attributed to people who are in a
deep state of unconsciousness. I am using here the proper definition
of hallucination: an apparent perception (such as seeing something or
hearing something) that comes without any external stimulus that
produces it.

“Your
eyes must have been playing tricks on you.”

This
is an appeal to what is basically a bogus possibility, the
possibility that your eyes suddenly malfunctioned, and caused you to
think you were seeing something that you weren't seeing. Since the
human eye is a remarkably reliable instrument, this isn't a
believable rejoinder. Unless you have chronic vision problems, your
eyes will never “play tricks on you,” although your mind may
misinterpret some information that your eyes send you.

“Your
camera must have malfunctioned.”

This
is like the “your eyes must have been playing tricks on you”
statement, but involves a camera rather than an eye. It's just as
weak a statement, because modern digital cameras are very reliable
things that virtually never have one-shot malfunctions that might be
interpreted as evidence for the paranormal.

“It
was probably just an optical illusion.”

If you
think an optical illusion is a plausible explanation for an anomalous
observation, ask yourself: when was the last time you can remember
seeing an optical illusion? It's probably some optical illusion you
saw in a book. That's because optical illusions are pretty rare in
nature.

“People
like me don't believe in that kind of stuff.”

Variation:
“People like us don't believe in
that kind of stuff.”

This is basically an appeal to a sociological or
cultural taboo. The person using the catchphrase is basically
reminding you that within some particular subculture, there are
penalties or sanctions for believing in something like the anomaly
being considered. A rejoinder is to point out that acceptance of an
anomaly should be based on evidence, not on taboos.

“That
is too weird to be real.”

Variation: “That is too crazy to be true.”

One can counter this catchphrase with this observation:
nature loves weirdness. And, of course, it does. Almost all of the
things that might be dismissed as “too weird to be true” are not
half as weird as some of the things scientists believe in, such as
the weird rules of quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement, black
holes, neutron stars, and the sudden origin of the universe in a
singularity.

“They're
all just a bunch of fakers.”

Using any statement beginning with “they're all
just...” is in general a sign of prejudice and stereotyping. It's
generally impossible to prove such statements, and it's also
generally impossible to prove weaker statements beginning with
“they're mainly just a bunch of ...”

A good way to rebut such bigotry is just to ask: what
evidence do you have to support that statement?

“It
was probably just a lens smudge.”

When used to dismiss some anomaly photograph, a comment
such as this is basically equivalent to accusing the photographer of
being a complete moron. Lens smudges keep producing the same effect
until the camera is cleaned. Only the most careless and dimwitted
photographer would fail to notice that such an anomaly was occurring
in each photo. Also, lens smudges cannot be used to explain anything
other than a blurry blob, because the camera cannot focus on anything
on the lens.

“It
was probably just dust.”

Dust isn't big enough to produce photographic anomalies
when a photographer shoots in ordinary air. The particle sizes of
outdoor dust particles are only about 1 micron, which is about one
fifteen thousandth (1/15000) of the area right in front of the lens.
That's hundreds of times too small to produce a decent photographic
anomaly. If the dust in ordinary air were sufficient to produce photo
anomalies, almost every flash photo would show such anomalies.

“It
was just a cosmic ray hitting the camera.”

This excuse is used to explain away anomalies in photos
taken in space or on Mars. It isn't a very persuasive excuse when
the anomaly occurs on the exact horizon or when the anomaly seems to
have more structure than we would expect a passing cosmic ray to
produce.

Below is an example of a anomaly explained as a "cosmic ray hit." We see what looks like a luminous figure. The original NASA photo can be seen here. The figure appears exactly in front of the landing site where one of the Mars rovers was deployed from. What are the odds against a cosmic ray hitting in that exact spot, to create what looks like a figure with legs?

Copyright Notice

All posts on this blog are authored by Mark Mahin, and are protected by copyright. Copyright 2013-2014 by Mark Mahin. All rights reserved. Any resemblance between any fictional character and any real person is purely coincidental.